The House of Representatives this past week fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass a bill banning abortion based on sex selection — sometimes called “gendercide” because it’s usually aimed at exterminating baby girls. Most Republicans voted for banning gendercide, most Democrats against.

I have to say, I’m with the Democrats on this one. The Supreme Court has decided that aborting our children is a right enshrined in the Constitution. By what logic, then, do we withhold that right from people based on their motives for exercising it?

If a woman chooses to snuff out her unborn child because it’s retarded or handicapped or female, who are we to say her nay? How would we even know why she’s doing it? Are we going to interrogate her? Administer a lie detector test? And what happens when our genetic testing capabilities improve? Are we going to stop her from aborting a child who is genetically destined to be gay? Or unintelligent? Or untalented? Or freckled? Of course not. How could we? As MSNBC host Alex Wagner said, praising the House Democrats’ decision, “It’s about a woman’s right to choose!”

Exactly. The Supreme Court has ruled that a woman has a right to choose to abort a child growing inside her own body. And even that doesn’t really make sense. It still limits a woman’s constitutional sphere of action. After all, a person has the same right to life whether he’s in one place or another, so if a baby has no right to life in the womb, why should that status change just because he comes out? It doesn’t make any sense.

So says Peter Singer, a Princeton University bioethicist. Singer says you should be able to “abort” a child up to four months old. Before eighteen weeks, Singer says, a baby can’t form preferences so its preferences can’t be weighed against those of the mother — so what’s the problem? Likewise Italian philosopher Alberto Giubilini and Australian ethicist Francesca Minerva, who recently wrote that “killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.”

I dare you to find a flaw in their logic:

If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.

And, as the Democrats and MSNBC have now rightfully explained to us, one of the reasons which justify abortion would be the discovery that the child is of the wrong sex. And if you’re one of those people who like to be surprised by your baby’s gender, you might well want to wait until the doctor turns to you with the words, “It’s a girl!” before deciding to slaughter it. It’s your constitutional right.

Indeed, only by following the Democrats’ logic to its natural conclusion can women fully claim their God-given prerogative to kill babies of the wrong gender, sexual preference, intelligence, skill set, physical abilities, skin color or hair color. Thus only by saying a loud, triumphant “No!” to the Republicans’ war on women’s rights can we begin to shape the future generations of this great nation to be the very best they can be.

This, after all, was the goal of Margaret Sanger who, as the Planned Parenthood website declares, was “the founder of Planned Parenthood… [and] one of the movement’s great heroes.” Sanger wanted to “assist the race to the elimination of the unfit,” (especially black people) and, judging by the nearly 2,000 black babies aborted every day, Planned Parenthood and the Democrats are clearly following in her footsteps.

Republicans may be willing to stand by while humanity sinks into femininity, blackness and other defects, but not me. No, sir!

“Singer says you should be able to “abort” a child up to four months old. Before eighteen weeks, Singer says, a baby can’t form preferences so its preferences can’t be weighed against those of the mother — so what’s the problem?”

Why stop at an arbitrary 4 months? And what if the preferences some one chooses are the wrong ones? At any age, if it’s the wrong preferences, or if a defect develops, why spend scare dollars on keeping it alive? I’m sure that’s how many of Pol Pot’s guards thought.

Peter Singer, Alberto Giubilin and Francesca Minerva are the “intellectual” heirs of Adolph Hitler. And yes, I’m going there because that’s where it starts. Start at the margins, then push further. These people need to be shunned in all aspects of life. They are bad, evil people.

Not to make light of such a serious matter, but I believe a lot of parents would approve of retroactive abortion through the teenaged years. Fortunately, most of them grow out of it. Those that don’t tend to become Democrats.

Values eh? The same one that allow abortion yet get all up in arms when some idiot kills a pregnant mother 2 months along – and wish the death sentence on said idiot – twice – once for the mother and once for the ‘baby’. A ‘baby’ who is conveniently a ‘fetus’ when it suits them. A conundrum at best.

I posted that is almost seemed like a stealth Pro-Life campaign because it carried the Pro-Choice position to its logical conclusion. Naturally, I got a lot of responses attempting to explain how the Pro-Choice position is nothing like that.

I still don’t understand why it is ethical and legal for a doctor to kill a baby born from a botched abortion but not ethical or legal for a mother to dump her newborn in a trash-bin or leave it in a toilet.

Why not carry it on out to 18? Teenagers are far from fully developed and are just as much, if not more trouble than newborns. Bill Cosby was told and passed the saying on to his kids that he brought them into this world he can take them out! /sarc

Actually, the brain isn’t fully developed until about age 25. That’s why the sudden drop in car accident rates at around that age. The insurance companies have known it’s fact for a long time, and recently, brain research has shown that the part of the brain that assesses risk doesn’t finish developing until that age.

Of course, for Democrats, that age at which the brain fully develops does creep up a bit past the 25 mark….

I, for one…am fully in favor of a woman’s right to choose to abort her baby for any reason she chooses, at any time she chooses, even as it is entering the world, as long as it is attached to the umbilical cord. By any means necessary.

But NOT if the mother is drinking an overly large soda. That’s where I personally draw the line on the woman’s right to choose.

Brilliant, as always, Mr. Klavan. Nobody Important doesn’t know why the secularist, mainstream “Republican” editorial staff here @ PJM allow you (and only you) to get away with such blatant insults to their “intelligence,” (they don’t always allow us lowly Commentors to do likewise), but we are always amused at the double standard it reveals.

Not that you (or many others) really care but your “hilarious” essay and video are now prominently linked from Another Slow News’s Day’s main Abortion page as well.

Readers interested in the many dozens of additional links on ASND other Abortion-related pages can find them by navigating across the branches (and sub-branches) of ASND’s Culture / Abortion menu tree.

What a sad state of affairs. The more sophisticated, more effective and more available conception control becomes, the more the bloodthirsty aborters scream RIGHTS, RIGHTS RIGHTS! And, the more they revert to the the most primitive and cruel birth control method.

Really a pity that their mothers had no legal or moral right to terminate them!
These more these followers of the Third Reich Eugenics Racial Purification proclamations scream the more absurd they sound.

Isn’t it curious how throughout all of history the natural instinct was for women to protect their children and in 100 years of socialists roaming around, the instinct is evaporating like a summer shower on a hot August sidewalk.

On the other hand, anyone with the moral/ethical/principles to want to abort a child based upon “designer options”…is probably doing the world a favor. If we ever advance far enough as a society where the baby could have the same choice in reverse, we would move even closer to the perfection sought.

Between insane parents who now want only perfect male babies and crazy politicians like Mayor Bloomberg that want to control everything we eat, you would think that we’re trying to breed some sort of “Master Race.” Yet I look in the mirror and, trust me gang, I’m anything but perfect looking. I guess soon we will have laws banning the “beauty challeneged” from walking the streets and we’ll have to hide people like me from view, lest the Federal government come knocking on my door to take me away to some concentration camp in North Dakota where people like me are kept, out of sight and out of mind.

Anybody see where all this is going? About 70 years ago we had a nut in Germany who was trying to do the same thing, only he took Margaret Sanger way too literally. As a result millions perished. Say it can’t happen today? Try being a female fetus in China and let me know what her odds are of being aborted.

Humanity is entering a very bad phase right now. We think that anything that’s inconvenient to someone can be disposed of like a bag of trash. Including people. If you’re wondering when the next Holocaust is going to take place, just know that it’s already hear. Just take a look at the shear numbers of babies aborted by Planned Parenthood each year, most of them black. Perhaps an entire generation of Americans has been eliminated since abortion became legal throughout the country, and people take pride in this? They are proud that this represents a woman’s right to “choose?” Well, let’s call it what it is, a woman’s right to embrace death (some would call it murder). I’m not going to sit here and deny a woman her right to do whatever she wants with her body. But to all you feminists out there, please spare me that the right to have an abortion is the greatest personal-rights victory since Magna Carta. But, if we keep going down this road, there will be a lot fewer women able to exercise this right, since most of the kids being aborted will be women. This whole karma thing really stinks, doesn’t it?

I have often wondered if a pro-abort liberal woman and a pro-life conservative woman found out the baby she was carrying would be gay…who would be most likely to abort and who would raise the child? As a woman of the latter persuasion I would have that child gratefully and love it as a gift from God.

retarded psuedo-logic intellectual pretense. the right is not to kill a baby. the right is to terminate a pregnancy, to conclude the process of gestation. if a woman chooses to end a biological process prior to its end that has no correlation with killing of infants. your argument is logically flawed.

So what ever happened to a woman’s right to “just say no” to sex or to use contraception if she doesn’t want to risk pregnancy?

If those rights were exercized FIRST, the number of cases where a woman would even have to consider abortion would be drastically reduced.

I am convinced that most abortions come about because couples couldn’t be bothered to use contraception and decided to “take a chance”. Killing an unborn child because you can’t be bothered to take a pill or use a condom is just deplorable.

If a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, that, of course, is a VERY different story.

You’re the one using “retarded psuedo-logic”. Provided there are no medical complications or the willful termination of the pregancy, the end result of conception is that a human being will be born, period.

Spare me the euphamistic BS, abortion is not simply the “ending of a biological process”. Abortion is the intentional killing of a human being.

Then why all the hand wringing about abortion from the left? The whole “made as rare as possible” BS? Or why are many on the left uncomfortable with abortion based on sex selection (or soon to be other factors?).

Everyone knows it’s a baby, some pretend otherwise to fuel their need for ease in life.

I cannot wrap my brain around the liberal activist who will demand that the government decide what car you should drive, what light bulb to use, how big your cup of coke should be, how much salt you should use, what you can think, what you can say, what fabric you can wear (no fur!), what food you should eat, where you can live, how you can regulate the temperature in your house, etc, has no problem allowing you to kill your fetus through the third trimester and seeks no limit on any sexual perversity you may have. These are the same liberals who would keep alive the vilest murderers and fight for the rights of pedophiles, killers and assorted criminals to live among you, but would not lose a moment’s sleep on killing an unborn child.

But then again, it all goes back to liberal desire for human extinction fed by climate change hysteria: if you remove all limitations on the basest human behaviors, let murderers roam free to prey on the innocent, remove all choice when it comes to partaking of modern human conveniences and use of energy in the name of saving the planet, you succeed in making life nasty, brutish and short, and by increasing abortion and making government-recognized gay marriage a civil right, you insure negative population growth. It then all makes sense.

The saddest thing? If I were to send this column to my abortion-loving lefty friends, their reaction would be horrified disgust (at the pure evil of knuckle-dragging, women-hating conservatives) or refusal to engage, as in “I-CAN’T HEAR YOU!” They’re totally locked into their position, eyes wide shut.

First unborn babies (fetuses), then those in a vegatative state, then those with terminal (& expensive to treat)illnesses, then grandpa & grandma (unviable old persons), then race, then…A slippery slope (of blood).

If one denies humanity for one, all other inhuman actions are feasable.

Wow! How incredibly appropriate. Your post reminded me of this saying:
“First, they came first for Communists…And I did not speak up because,—– I was not a Communist;
Then they came for trade unionists…And I did not speak up because,——— I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for Gypsies… And I did not speak up because,—————-
I am not a Gypsy;
Then they came for homosexuals… And I did not speak out because,———– I am not homosexual;
Then they came for Jews…And I did not speak up because,——————– I was not a Jew;
Then… then… they came for me… … And no one spoke out for me,———Because, by that time………… there was no one left to speak up for me.”

well, really, it’s part and parcel of second-wave femininism. The sort of existentialism that led to the killing of a stranger ( L’etranger,by Camus) as a way of creating ” autonomous personhood” was also the sort that argued that a woman was most lovely on the day after she had an abortion. She had killed, too. There’s whole shelves of novels like this, in French. Who else is a woman going to violently kill, in a society that regulates guns so severely?

There is a sick, twisted irony here. Feminists pushed for, and attained, the right for women to kill their unborn children, based on any circumstance they choose. That same law which they felt would be somehow beneficial to women, now works to eliminate them. The works of feminism results in dead females.

Unfortunately, the logic is truly consistent. The extreme nihilism of modern culture accepts the killing of unborn children for entirely selfish reasons. As only a few days, maybe a couple weeks at the most, separates the unborn from the newborn, logically then they are both mostly equal in physical development. If they are both equal, then they are both equally vulnerable to the mother’s sentence of death.

Wait until someone discovers whatever genetic trigger exists that makes people gay. As soon as parents start aborting future gays, we will see liberal heads exploding like mad. Mind you – there are a few parents who seem desperate to actually TURN their children gay (most notably attention-whore celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Cher, and those horrible reality-show moms), but even the “normal” liberal would think twice about bringing a gay person into the world if they could avoid it.

Except there is no proof for anything like a homosexual gene. Maybe a predisposition, but no deterministic gene.

It would obviously be self defeating, at even a moderately less production of offspring (say homosexuals have 25% fewer children), the gene would quickly become relegated to the genetic dust bin after just a few generation.

First, of course, many homosexuals do reproduce. All but the most intensely gay male homosexuals can get it up enough to father a few children. Lesbians just have to hold still. Historically most women had little choice about marrying.

Second, a “bad” gene can persist as a recessive. All vertebrate animals are “diploid” – each individual carries a double set of genes. A dominant gene is always expressed; a recessive gene is expressed only when the organism has it both sets. It’s not likely there is a “gay gene”. Most likely, there are recessive genes which predispose for homosexuality by interacting with other traits or with maternal traits that affect the developing embryo.

These genes get culled when the offspring is exclusively homosexual, but that affects only a handful of carriers. It’s possible that some of these traits may have benefits in other contexts, which would tend to preserve them. (Compare to sickle-cell anemia. In its mild form, it gives improved resistance to malaria.)

Thus the selection pressure against these genes could be extremely low.

There may be such a thing as a “gay gene”, or a pre-disposition to be gay, but the truth is that most gays are recruited- seduced. What is that old NAMBLA line, “Eight is too late.”? Many homosexuals are predators, and they like the young stuff. Consider that, though the press avoids the question like the plague, over 85% of the Catholic priest abuse cases involved not pedoplilia, but homosexual abuse of post-adolescent boys. Many of the cases also involved homosexual men sueing the priests. (True pedoplilia involves adults and pre-adolescent children, both of either sex.)

Hey, Dave. I’m leaving this comment up because you have the right to express the opinion, but I strongly disagree. For various reasons, it’s almost impossible to get good statistics on this stuff, but the statement “the truth is that most gays are recruited – seduced,” is almost certainly not the truth at all and there are no reliable studies that show more child abuse among gays than straights. The scandal in the Catholic church is not representative of the general population for obvious reasons, and to compare a criminal organization like NAMBLA to the ordinary gay guy who does his job and loves his consensual adult boyfriend is, really, absurd and insulting.

James – the MOM can’t kill the baby! That’s MURDER! She will need to take it to a government-sponsored “doctor” and have it extinguished. I can’t believe that you can’t see the huge difference between those things. /sarc off

So through abortion babies are killed. Yes, babies. They can never be anything but a human being so referring to them as babies is proper. If they could turn into something else, abortionists “might” have a point. But once conception takes place, all you have is a baby. So the various descriptions used by abortion supporters, are just diversionary babble.
As for gendercide, lets face it, those seeking to reduce world population are not stopping there. The Obamacare bill is nothing short of “eldercide.” The overall objective of the rationing panel, and there is one, will be to curtail treatment to those nasty old people. Yep, just as the boomer generation enters into old age, a new law to facilitate killing them off!

If we ban gendercide, then it will be illegal to abort baby girls, but not baby boys. Over time, we will have a surplus of girls and a dearth of boys. Is this not the optimal mix for the male of the species?

IQ Testing Before conception! Neuter the Stupid!!!!
If you’re on welfare as a career choice, Neutered. If you have congenital disabilities, Neutered. If you’re a Violent criminal, Neutered. If you’re a Life time Drug addict, Neutered. Aids?, Yup Neutered. Guys that didn’t ever want kids and are always worried about some Girl “baby raping” you here is your opportunity to “Choose”, Neutered.
Have all the irresponsible sex you want and no innocent/inconvenient fetus gets exterminated. No overly emotional right to lifers get offended. If you’re Catholic… don’t worry your sperm is still sacred. Its common sense really.
By the way Leftist Socialist/Democrats you guys can foot the medical bill. Oh yea and Neutered!

All, and I do mean ALL, bioethicists are leftwing frauds who have draped themselves in “ethics” cloaks. The few “training” programs in bioethics all all run by these people. Bioethics as a putative discipline was born about 20 years ago at Penn, and spread rapidly into the other Ivies. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s bro, he of the death panels and quality-adjusted life years to determine cost-effectiveness in health care, is a Harvard-”trained” bioethicist.

Sarcasm Alert. We can save social security if we terminate the old (via Death Panels ) We can name them for Singer and Sanger and just call them the SS! (by the way one of Obamas few recorded votes as State Senator (there’s that pesky SS again) was for “partial Birth abortion i.e. infanticide.

It astounds me that most people can’t see abortion headed in the direction of “go ahead and kill the 2-year-old.” Their whole philosophy on the matter is based on a mother saying, “I can’t handle this right now; just get rid of it.” So how can they suddenly demand her to be responsible when she’s looking at a 2-year-old and saying the same damned thing?

And it scares the hell out of me where the left would go if there were no right-wingers holding them back. No matter what they enact in the cause of abortion, sexual mischief, gun control, you-name-it, they give us the same frightening remarks: “We’re just getting started”; “We still have a long way to go”; “We’re not done yet.”

A few months after my sister’s first child was born, their family visited my parents’ house (probably for Thanksgiving). During that trip, my sister and brother-in-law went to a movie and left their daughter for the first time. She cried and cried and cried. My mother first tried to calm her down, then my father tried. After perhaps an hour of continuous crying I finally got her to be quiet (doubtless sheer exhaustion deserves most of the credit). It was a strong lesson in why being a single parent is a bad idea.

All during that time, society’s failure to live up to its abortion ideal kept us from strangling the little noisemaker. That and our basic human decency.

1. The state knows best.
2. Nothing is holy.
That is all we need to know to enter the “brave new world.” So many people have learned that lesson. It is a short walk indeed from the abortion mill to the death camp. My question is this: How could so many people who surely have looked into the eyes of a child not seen the miracle so abundantly evident there; and then compared it to the empty dry stick that is a body in a coffin. Could you snuff that out for mere convenience? Are they dumb unthinking machines themselves? Have they never thought beyond the ends of their noses?

Always a joyful day on seeing your spotlight on the insanity, clinical lunacy of the New Age compassionate liberals.

Because they call themselves “democrats/liberals” don’t realise they’re – in
commonterms – is that the right word?- crazy. Crazy enough that in a rational world they would be tenderly handled by the men in the white coats to an environment of care and compassion. But in the world of the intelligentsia, punditry and politics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in the Western world they are the “leaders of men”.

The lunacy is infectious to epi- and en-demic. Particularly virulent for the “best and brightest” sophisticated europhile members of exclusive and privileged institutions. Less so among common folk, the pathetic astro-turf creatures of Red-States. and proudly American citizens. Or those who have from some knowledge of history, geograpy and cultures established some immunity. Except those that want to be “with it” in the footsteps of the sophisticated..

Great fun if these madmen (Mad Men) didn’t meddle with “The “Lives of Others.